Poppy Drop

I watched the very moving Service of Remembrance with its wonderful music on TV last night and also tuned in this morning for events at The Cenotaph, again extremely touching.

This afternoon I visited Stow Maries Great War Aerodrome for their Service of Remembrance. It was lovely to see the cadets of the various services arrive so beautifully turned out and behaved. It amused me to see the young lads obviously enjoying the scrunch on the gravel of their Parade Glossed off the face of the earth steel-tipped boots.

I was delighted that the planned poppy drop was going to go ahead. In my pic a tube, which is stuffed full of poppies, can be seen on the side of the Stampe biplane. The end of the tube facing the front of the plane is open, just covered with some chicken wire. The pilot lifts the wooden flap at the other end and the force of the airflow pushes the poppies out. There were three planes, each carrying a tube, taking part. It wasn't like the gentle and continuous shower of petals on Saturday night. I had my camera trained on the planes all the time and managed to capture the release of the poppies after a fashion. Blink and you'd miss it. :)

The roundel in my pic is on a Nieuport Scout replica which I haven't seen before. The original of this sesquiplane (literally one and a half wings as the lower wing is half of the area of the upper) first flew one hundred years ago.